Kim McAllister is a freelance journalist and communications consultant at Connect. She presents Clever About Cash on BBC Radio Scotland and contributes to a number of BBC shows including Radio 4’s Inside Science. She regularly writes for the Herald and other business titles. Since the pandemic hit, Kim has been involved with a wide range of events online, from chairing the three day annual international conference of the British Occupational Hygiene Society to hosting business recovery webinars for the Herald. Her space podcast series "Scotland's Secret Space Race", which she made with the University of Edinburgh, is the no 6 physics podcast in the UK and she is currently working on a special edition.
Albert King is Chief Data Officer in The Scottish Government and leads the Data & Digital Identity Division. He is passionate about our vision that data be used routinely to save time, money and lives creating economic, social and environmental value. Albert applies the experience he has gained working in digital and data across sectors such as financial services, logistics, healthcare and the public sector to deliver the platforms that support data and analytics across the Scottish Government, foster data innovation and provide expertise and policy insight in data, identity and AI.
Roger Halliday started as Scotland’s Chief Statistician in November 2011 and Served as Scottish Government’s Chief Data Officer role between 2017 and 2020.
Since March, he has jointly led a Covid Modelling and Analysis Division in Scottish Government and is the interim Chief Executive of Research Data Scotland.
Roger qualified with a degree in statistics in 1993 from St. Andrews University and joined the Government fast stream as an assistant statistician. He worked for various UK Government Departments and at the Scottish Government in a number of statistical and policy making roles.
He became an honorary Professor at the University of Glasgow in 2019.
Colin Birchenall is the Chief Digital Officer at Glasgow City Council. He is responsible for the Digital Glasgow Strategy that sets out a vision for Glasgow to be a top 20 global digital economy and recognised as one of the most innovative and pioneering smart cities in the world.
He is also the Chief Technology Officer for the Digital Office for Scottish Local Government which facilitates a collaborative approach to digital transformation across Scotland’s 32 local authorities. Colin also volunteers for the IET as a member of the IET Digital Panel and subject editor for the IET Smart Cities Journal.
Will leads Red Hat’s Transformation Practice for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Working strategically with clients across all sectors, he believes that technology should be easy, but changing behaviours and creating new mindsets is much more difficult. Embracing the leadership tenets of an Open Organization, Will has implemented DevOps adoption at organizational scale with multiple governmental agencies, global system integrators, and Fortune 500 companies. Prior to Red Hat, Will served in the United States Army as an Intelligence Officer. With an education in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and Computer Science from the University of Virginia, he focused on the intersection between different cultures and technology. He believes that the fundamental building block for success across the enterprise is the team, and that well performing teams are required for goal attainment.
Paul forms part of the UK Public Sector Transformation Team where his role is focused on helping customers successfully adopt the merits of open source practices, tools and technologies to better enhance transformative cultural adoption the Open way.
Paul has worked for Agile Practices, Partners and Corporate Software Vendors across a range of industries which equips him with a strong perspective of how to navigate the challenges faced by the UK Public Sector today.
Please log-in to view event streams
